Saturday, February 25, 2012

Philip Benedict introduces this big impressive book as a survey of “the history and significance of Reformed Protestantism in Europe from its origins until the end of the age of orthodoxy around 1700” (xvii). He points out that no single author has attempted anything similar since John T. McNeill wrote The History and Character of Calvinism, which was published in 1954. However, says Benedict, since then the broad field of history and also a specific part of that field, the corner known as Reformation studies, have each gone through what he describes as a dramatic sea change. What were those changes?

First, in general, historians no longer report only those events surrounding “elite actors.” Instead, they now incorporate “the actions and aspirations of ordinary men and women.” Second, the half-century following McNeill’s book witnessed what Benedict calls the “deconfessionalization” of Reformation history. He explains that, before, “most church history was written by members of the church in question eager to explore a critical moment in the formation of their religious tradition.” But since then a new scene has emerged where it is not uncommon, for example, for Roman Catholic scholars to offer “sympathetic and penetrating studies of Protestant theology” (xviii). Clearly, Benedict hopes that his book will be a good example of both trends. He not only subtitles his work A Social History of Calvinism, he also describes himself as “a total outsider, an agnostic, nonpracticing Jew raised in a secular household” (xxv). In this regard, the book under review is very different from a much more traditional title like Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers(Nashville: Broadman, 1988).

Benedict’s overview of the period follows a four-part outline. In Part I, “The Formation of a Tradition,” the author describes the hectic and disorganized character of the first few decades of Protestantism. He observes that the distinctive Reformed tradition in Protestantism had two beginnings. Huldrych Zwingli led the first. The second was associated with primarily three names: Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s protégé who tirelessly advanced the views of his mentor over a period of forty years, John a Lasco, who played a central role in the propagation of Reformed ideas in East Friesland and also among French and Dutch refugees in London, and, of course, John Calvin, “the most forceful voice within the increasingly multipolar and multivocal Reformed world” (77).

Part II, “The Expansion of a Tradition,” takes up the second half of the sixteenth century, a critical time of remarkable growth, one that turned out to be essential to the future prominence of the Reformed branch of Protestantism. Benedict explains that

the dynamism evidenced by the remarkable geographical expansion of Reformed churches in those years arose from an accumulation of specific theological features, organizational attributes, and historical circumstances that all helped the cause win supporters among princes and people alike, then defend itself tenaciously in those instances in which it expanded in defiance of the ruling authorities (124).

This part of the book also examines, in turn, six different regions in which the Reformed tradition was well known during a fifty-year period of historic growth: France, Scotland, the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, England, and Eastern Europe. Benedict notes that between 1554 and 1600, the Reformed branch multiplied in number by a factor of twenty. More than that, for all of the various regional expressions of Reformed Christianity, this loosely organized international group managed to establish and maintain a certain solidarity. The unity of the movement expressed itself through mutual aid in times of distress, personal connections across long distances, consultation on theological questions, and an effort to draft documents that would express a basic consensus.

Part III, “The Transformation of a Tradition,” relates the story of Reformed Protestantism from about 1590 to 1700, “a period of theological ferment of the utmost importance” (298). Benedict says that during this time the tradition became more scholastic, more organized. These were the years, for example, when the doctrine of double predestination was refined, and when the idea of the verbal inerrancy of Scripture was developed as an answer to the counter-Reformation. But in addition to being a time of change from within, the seventeenth century also witnessed the Reformed tradition being challenged from the outside as a result of its sometimes falling into political disfavor. Finally, religious controversy and political upheaval in isolated Great Britain created unique struggles over theology and polity. These generated Anglicanism, Puritanism, and the Church of Scotland.

In Part IV, the most entertaining section of the book, Benedict concludes by describing the practical day-to-day differences that the Reformed tradition brought to the lives of adherents. He deals with three specific topics: ministerial leadership, church discipline, and common piety. Reformed believers appreciated sound biblical scholarship, preaching that brought with it strong conviction, and ministers who were models of Christian attitude and behavior. Along this line, Benedict reminds the reader that anti-clericalism stood at the center of what initially sparked the Reformation as a popular movement. Benedict says that the fragmentary nature of consistory records makes a full description of church discipline difficult. In spite of the sketchy evidence, two things are certain: the Reformed highly valued an actively disciplined church. Yet, it is a mistake to assume that Calvin’s Geneva was typical. In no other place and at no other time did any other presbytery measure up to that standard. Regarding common piety, Benedict observes that Reformed Protestants drastically reduced the number of Catholic holy days and abandoned the abstinence of meat during Lent. Their rhythms were not annual, but weekly: attendance at worship, which strongly focused on the preached Word.

In his “Introduction,” Benedict explains that his agenda for the book includes two specifics. First, he intends to examine Max Weber’s theory announced in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1900), a book that famously associated Calvinism with disciplined work. Second, he wants to test the supposed special connection between the Reformed tradition and modern democracy. As he concludes, Benedict announces his verdict: the evidence disproves both ideas, though still widely accepted.

Working through any book, especially one this size, readers are bound to notice what they regard as inconsistencies and gaps. This one is no exception. I have two criticisms of Benedict’s treatment. First, at some points, he seems unaware of the biblical and theological positions and the issues that were at stake in some of the Reformation debates. His descriptions of the controversies surrounding the Lord’s Supper are the most notable examples. He rightly points out that there was no theological issue more hotly contested among reformers than the question of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But when detailing the variety of views held by first and second generation reformers, Benedict appears to assume that Martin Luther maintained the dogma he had inherited from the Roman Catholic Church, the doctrine of transubstantiation. As any survey of Christian historical theology reveals, Luther actually subscribed to a different position, an old viewpoint known as consubstantiation. Before Thomas Aquinas finally anathematized it, consubstantiation had actually been regarded by a number of highly regarded medieval theologians as an acceptable understanding of the Real Presence. This was true even after the Fourth Lateran Council. Luther himself illustrated the concept by noting that the distinction between metal and fire was impossible when looking at red-hot fiery iron still in the flames. But at no point does Benedict provide an explanation of such distinctions. Across hundreds of pages the reader searches in vain for even one mention of consubstantiation. And the name of Aquinas comes up only in a single reference to Thomas’s natural theology, not his interpretation of the Real Presence. This sort of omission does not fit with Benedict’s welcome acknowledgment that there is “no gainsaying the force of belief systems in the story of the European Reformation” (xxii). Although he says that his approach takes into account both religious traditions and the contexts in which they arose (xxii), it is the contexts that tend to take over Benedict’s discussion. How can a history of a movement dedicated to the premise of sola Scriptura contain so few biblical references?

A second disappointment is the scant attention that Benedict pays to the Reformation’s prehistory. Specifically, only rarely does he touch on the question of how the movements associated with John Wyclif and Jan Hus might have influenced and contributed to what unfolded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the many fine features of this book are the dozens of figures, maps, graphs, and tables that accompany and illuminate the text. One of these, a Dutch print from the mid-seventeenth century found on page 52, depicts the men who were then regarded as the great heroes of Protestantism. Benedict includes the print in order to show that, at that time, people did not consider only Luther, Calvin and perhaps one or two others as the significant leaders. Instead, the print includes the faces of more than twenty men. Among these champions are Wyclif and Hus. Clearly, then, at least some Protestants of those early generations believed that in some ways their movement pre-dated Martin Luther. Yet, the caption for the print is one of only two times that Benedict simply mentions Wyclif in the entire book. Likewise, in a bare reference to Lollardy, Benedict suggests that its continuing presence and influence may have contributed to the sudden iconoclasm in England in the 1520s (233). The names “Lollard” and “Wyclif” do not appear in the Index. Thus, Benedict misses the opportunity to distinguish for the reader between influence and mere anticipation. How appropriate it is when, for example, modern-day Protestants speak of Wyclif as “the morning star of the Reformation”? Readers of this book will be left still wondering.

These criticisms notwithstanding, Christ's Churches Purely Reformed is a fine piece of historical scholarship and an incredible achievement. I learned so very much, and am glad I read it.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

In this book, Edmund Morgan traces the history of the Puritans from their beginnings in sixteenth-century England through developments in seventeenth-century New England. He gives special attention to their quest to purify the church so that its membership would more closely approximate the true and perfect church of Christ.

Morgan tells us that his title, Visible Saints, is a term that occurs frequently in the writings of the Puritans. More than that, quoting Geoffrey Nuttall, he asserts that this phrase “was undoubtedly their controlling idea and provides the key to what they were after” (vii-viii). Morgan explains that the fundamental question the Puritans raised actually goes back at least as far as the ancient church and the Donatist schism. The Donatists tried to relieve the tension between the ideal and the real by establishing and maintaining what they asserted were "holy" Christian communities. Famously, Augustine responded by insisting that there are at all times, in fact, two churches: one is pure, unmixed, but invisible, while the other is visible, but mixed and impure. In other words, although the Lord knows those who are his, the church doesn’t. With a few radical exceptions, says Morgan, the Puritans “never repudiated St. Augustine’s distinction between the visible and invisible church. They all insisted on the impossibility of a church without blemish in this world” (33). They nevertheless carried out a unique attempt to further the reformation of the visible church so that it would more closely resemble the invisible.

Eventually, there emerged among the Puritans two distinct groups: nonseparatists, who sought ecclesiastical reform while retaining membership in the Church of England, and separatists, who believed that their national church was hopelessly corrupt and that, above all, it lacked the essential quality of the true visible church: namely, the capacity of a congregation to discipline itself under the Word of God.

Among separatists, one question in particular naturally arose: who is worthy to belong to the church? What should be the terms of membership? At first, the conditions of membership appear to be a simple renunciation of the English Church and a promise not to attend the parish congregation. However, although all Puritans assumed that the invisible church was made up precisely of those people who had experienced the saving grace of God, early separatists made no attempt to determine the religious experiences of prospective members. The standards of membership were orthodox faith, voluntary submission to the discipline of the congregation, and the absence of obvious, gross sin.

In time, all Puritans eventually developed an ideal and practice of church membership which tested every candidate's experience of saving grace. The author notes that historians have typically believed that this practice was followed by the separatists who fled to Holland, and that it came in 1620 with the Pilgrims who, in turn, influenced later arrivals. Morgan's thesis disagrees with this traditional account:

My contention is that the practice came, not from Plymouth to Massachusetts as initially supposed, nor from England or Holland as presently assumed, but that it originated in Massachusetts among the nonseparating Puritans there and spread from Massachusetts to Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven, and back to England (65-66).

Regarding Puritanism in America, Morgan says that in the 1620s and even the 1630s, membership in both separatist and nonseparatist churches did not require a description and test of a prospective member's experience of saving grace. Yet, around 1640 and afterwards, this procedure was the norm. If the new system was well established in the 1640s, but was not known in 1629, how did it come to be? Morgan suggests that the idea was likely developed by George Phillips, minister at Watertown who came to America with John Winthrop in 1630. At any rate, within a few years the practice was forcefully advocated by John Cotton so that, by 1635, it was the norm in New England. There, churches "held it a duty to exclude from the church everyone who failed to persuade them in speech or writing that he possessed saving grace" (93).

Morgan points out how his thesis helps to explain other developments in the history of early New England Puritanism. For example, the uniquely-American movements and episodes associated with Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were radical extensions of the emergent New England religion. Hutchinson and her followers believed that God had granted them the ability to judge perfectly the professions offered by candidates for membership so that, in their community, the visible and invisible churches were one and the same.

The development of the so-called "the halfway covenant" can also be traced back to the standards of membership first recognized in New England. Morgan explains:

The absence of ties between the unregenerate part of the community and the church gave the latter an unprecedented purity, but it also placed the very life of the church in jeopardy. The members of the New England churches had themselves come from imperfect churches, in which they had learned the doctrines of Christianity, had taken the sacraments and received the experience of grace that qualified them for membership in the proper churches of New England. But how would the mass of men who had come to New England unqualified for membership ever become qualified? (122).

What ultimately forced the question of the church's responsibility to outsiders was the next generation, the children of New England Puritans. They had grown up baptized members of the church. But according to the new standards developed in America, many of them lacked the experience that would qualify them for membership. And what of their children, the grandchildren of founding members? "The Puritans had in fact moved the church so far from the world that it would no longer fit the biological facts of life" (128).

A 1662 synod attempted to remedy the problem. The proceedings from the synod said that church members' adult children who had not experienced saving grace should continue to be regarded as members of the church, and that they could bring their own children to be baptized, provided that the family did not live an outwardly scandalous life. Such members could not, however, vote. Nor could they participate in the Lord's Supper. This odd arrangement, generated by Puritan commitment to both infant baptism and a church made up entirely of saints, epitomized and reinforced a tension in American Puritanism that, as late as the mid-eighteenth century, lacked any real resolution.

In the “Preface,” Morgan explains that his book “originated as the Anson G. Phelps Lectures, delivered at New York University, in February and March, 1962” (viii). From beginning to end, Visible Saints retains a good bit of the engaging style of a fine set of lectures. Occasional comments in the text as well as footnoted sources indicate that Morgan conducted extensive and, in many cases, exhaustive research in the relevant primary sources available to him. The result of his careful and logical analysis is a convincing and delightful little book that has apparently become a classic in Puritan studies.

About Me

I am a Christian, a son and a brother, a husband and father, an American historian, a Bible student, and a music fan. I also like movies, and would like to become an real film buff. My ultimate professional goal is to win the World Series as the lead-off man and 2nd baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals.